Adulteration is a term not only applied in its proper sense to the fraudulent mixture of articles of commerce, food, drink, drugs, seeds, etc, with noxious or inferior ingredients, but also by magistrates and analysts to accidental impurity, and even in some cases to actual substitution.
The chief objects of adulteration are to increase the weight or volume of the article, to give a colour which either makes a good article more pleasing to the eye or else disguises an inferior one, to substitute a cheaper form of the article, or the same substance from which the strength has been extracted, or to give it a false strength.
Among the adulterations which were commonly practised around 1905 for the purpose of fraudulently increasing the weight or volume of an article are the following: Bread was adulterated with alum or sulphate of copper, which gives solidity to the gluten of damaged or inferior flour; with chalk or carbonate of soda to correct the acidity of such flour; and with boiled rice or potatoes, which enables the bread to carry more water, and thus to produce a larger number of loaves from a given quantity of flour. Wheatflour is adulterated with other inferior flours, as the flour from rice, bean, Indian-corn, potato, and with sulphate of lime, alum, etc. Milk was usually adulterated with water. The adulterations generally present in butter consisted of an undue proportion of salt and water, lard, tallow, and other fats; when of poor quality it was frequently coloured with a little annatto, and, at times, with the juice of carrots. Genuine butter should not contain less than 80 percent of butter-fat. Cheese was also coloured with annatto and other substances. Tea was adulterated chiefly in China with sand, iron-filings, chalk, gypsum, Chinaclay, exhausted tea leaves, and the leaves of the sycamore, horse-chestnut, and plum, whilst colour and weight were added by black-lead, indigo, Prussian-blue (one of the deleterious ingredients used by the Chinese in converting the lowest qualities of black into green teas), gum, turmeric, soapstone, catechu, and other substances.
Confections were adulterated with flour and sulphate of lime. Preserved vegetables were kept green and poisoned by salts of copper. The acridity of mustard is commonly reduced by flour, and the colour of the compound is improved by turmeric. Pepper was adulterated with linseed-meal, flour, mustard husks, etc. Colour was given to pickles by salts of copper, acetate of copper, etc. Ale was adulterated with common salt, Cocculus Indicus, grains of paradise, quassia, and other bitters, sulphate of iron, alum, etc. Porter and stout were mixed with sugar, treacle, salt, and an excess of water. Brandy was diluted with water, and burned sugar was added to improve the colour; sometimes bad whisky was flavoured and coloured so as to resemble brandy, and sold under its name.
Gin was mixed with excess of water, and flavouring matters of various kinds, with alum and tartar, were added. Rum was diluted with water, and the flavour and colour kept up by the addition of cayenne and burned sugar. For champagnegooseberry and other inferior wines were often substituted. Port was manufactured from red Cape and other inferior wines, the body, flavour, strength, and colour being produced by gum-dragon, the washings of brandy casks, and a preparation of German bilberries. Cheap brown sherry was mixed with Cape and other low-priced brandies, and was flavoured with the washings of brandy casks, sugar-candy, and bitter almonds. Pale sherries were produced by gypsum, by a process called plastering, which removes the natural acids as well as the colour of the wine. Other wines were adulterated with elderberry, logwood, Brazil-wood, cudbear, red beetroot, etc, for colour; with lime or carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda, carbonate of potash, and litharge, to correct acidity; with catechu, sloe-leaves, and oak-bark for astringency; with sulphate of lime and alum for removing colour; with cane-sugar for giving sweetness and body; with alcohol for fortifying; and with ether, especially acetic ether, for giving bouquet and flavour.
Medicines, such as jalap, opium, rhubarb, cinchonabark, scammony, aloes, sarsaparilla, squills, etc, were mixed with various foreign substances. Castor-oil has been adulterated with other oils; and inferior oils were often. mixed with cod-liver oil. Cantharides were often mixed with golden-beetle and also artificially-coloured glass.
The adulteration of seeds was largely practised also, the seed which forms the adulterant being of course of the most worthless kind that can be had. Thus turnip-seed was mixed with rape, wild mustard, or charlock, which are steamed and kiln-dried to destroy their vitality, so as to evade detection in the progress of growth; old and useless turnip-seed was also used fraudulently mixed with fresh seeds. Clover was also much mixed with plantain and mere weeds.
Acts against adulteration have been passed in various countries and at various times. In Britain there was a law against it as early as 1267. Research Adulteration
A last was a British measure which when applied to cod was equal to 12 barrels; applied to hides 12 dozen; applied to leather 200 skins; applied to pitch or tar 14 barrels; applied to wool 12 sacks; applied to gunpowder was 2400 lbs (24 barrels).
Long-line fishing is a commercial method of fishing using a line fitted with many hooks. Bottom long- lines are used to catch demersal fish such as cod, haddock, hake, halibut, and sea bream. They consist of a heavy, weighted line, about 90 m long, with short sidelines to which baited hooks are attached at intervals. Drifting long-lines are used for large fish, in particular tuna and albacore. They consist of about 400 sections, each of which is up to 400 m long. The whole assembly is supported by floats and can carry as many as 2,500 baited hooks. Long-lines (some using automated systems) are set and retrieved from one vessel in the duration of a day. Research Long-line Fishing
Anacanthim is an order of osseous fishes, including the cod, plaice, etc, with spineless fins, cycloid or ctenoid scales, the ventral fins either absent or below the pectorals, and ductless swim-bladder. Research Anacanthim
The bib (Morrhua lusca or Trisopterus luscus), is a fish of the cod family, found in the British seas, about 30 cm long, the body very deep and having a distensible membrane able to cover its head. It is esteemed as excellent eating and is called also pout, pouting or whiting pout. Research Bib
The burbot or eelpout (Lota vulgaris) is a fish of the cod family, which is confined to freshwater, and is widely though locally distributed throughout Europe. It is recognisable by its long tapering body, the small head with a barbell on the chin, the elongation of the second dorsal and anal fins and the small scales. In some parts of Europe it is greatly esteemed as a food. Research Burbot
The capelin (Mallotus villosus) is a small fish of the salmon family found in North American coastal waters where it is used as a bait for cod and also eaten. Research Capelin
The coal-fish or coalfish (Pollachius virens) also called the Saithe, Coley and Greencod, is a predaceous member of the cod family, distinguished by its dark, almost black back, white lateral line, and long lower jaw with a barbel. It extends from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. It feeds on other fish, particularly herring. Research Coal-fish
The Cod (Gadus) is a genus of fish of the family Gadidae. They are found in the Atlantic and Baltic. Cod are distinguished by the following characters: A smooth, rectangular, or fusiform body, covered with small soft scales; ventrals attached beneath the throat; gills large, seven-rayed, and opening laterally; a small beard at the tip of the lower jaw; generally two or three dorsal fins, one or two anal, and one distinct caudal fin.
The most interesting species is the common or Bank cod (Gadus morrhua). Though once found plentifully on the coasts of other northern regions, as Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland, a stretch of sea near the coast of Newfoundland is the favourite annual resort of formerly countless multitudes of cod, which visit the Grand Banks to feed upon the crustaceous and molluscous animals abundant in such situations, and thus attract fleets of fishermen - by the end of the 20th century the number of cod was so severely depleted by industrial fishing that fears grew that the ocd might become extinct.
Cod has long been recognised as a good food stuff and the oil extracted by heat and pressure from the liver is of great medicinal value, and contributes considerably to the high economic value of the cod. The cod is enormously prolific, the ovaries of each female containing more than 9,000,000 of eggs; but the numbers are kept down by a host of enemies. The spawning season, on the banks of Newfoundland, begins about the month of March and terminates in June; The cod takes from three to four years to reach maturity and achieves an average length of around one meter, and a weight between 30 and 50 lbs, though sometimes formerly cod were caught weighing three times this. The colour is a yellowish-gray on the back, spotted with yellowish and brown; the belly white or reddish, with golden spots in young individuals. Research Cod
Abbreviations
Research Adulteration
